Fr. Aidan Nichols: Let's convert England to Catholicism

The Catholic Herald reports that Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P., one of the finest theologians in the English-speaking world, "has broken ranks with the ecumenical establishment by calling for Catholics to convert non-Catholics.":

Fr Aidan Nichols, the English theologian most closely associated with the thinking of Benedict XVI, has appealed for England to be “re-made” as a Catholic country.

            He set out his radical and comprehensive programme for Catholic renewal in a new book entitled The Realm: An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England, published by Family Publications.

In his preface he says that Catholic Christianity should be put forward “not as an occupation for individuals in their solitude but as a form for the public life of society in its overall integrity”.

He admits that the conversion of England is “an absolutely colossal agenda”, adding: “It can only be brought into being, so far as it depends on us to do so, by a coordinated strategy for recreating a full-blooded catholicity with the power to... transform a culture in all its principal dimensions.

“That is what ‘the mission to convert’ and ‘the conversion of England’ mean to me.”

His comments will be seen as an implicit criticism of the direction of the Church in England and Wales. He points to “flagship” Catholic institutions which have “suffered shipwreck through secularisation”.

The Second Vatican Council, he argued, did not replace mission with dialogue. Instead it drew attention to respectful dialogue and an understanding of other faiths as a necessary condition of missionary work.

Read the entire piece. Back in 1999, Fr. Nichols wrote this piece for The Catholic Herald on the work of re-converting England, stating:

The "politically correct" refusal to speak about the conversion of England for fear of offending ecumenical or inter-faith sensibilities as well as arousing humanist-secularist irritation takes its rise from a misreading of the documents of the Council. Those documents furnish a mandate for courtesy, respect and the seeking of common ground in dialogue with such different constituencies as separated Christians, adherents of other religions, humanists. But they do not understand dialogue as entailing the cessation of mission, or as putting into cold storage the universalist claims of the Catholic Church.

The obscuring of these imperatives, on the ground that in a pluralist society to refer to them at all would be bad taste, has damaged the Church, not only by insinuating doubt as to what our message is and how committed we are. It has also, I believe, created what the scholastic theologians call an obex, an "obstacle" to the development in us of the graces of baptism and confirmation. These graces are not given exclusively for the purpose of personal sanctification. They are given for the insertion of individuals into the common mission of the Church, which continues that of the Apostles, who continued that of Christ, whose own mission was the prolongation of his eternal procession as the divine Son - all with a view of bringing back a world lost and wandering to the Father in its entirety As the present Holy Father put it in his encyclical on mission, "faith is strengthened when it is given to others". When the Church in England slapped a self-defying ordinance on converting those outside the household (for that is the widespread perception), did. it not in part bring upon itself the decline recent statistics have charted?

Fr. Nichols, the John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer, University of Oxford, has authored numerous books on a wide range of topics, including including Lovely Like Jerusalem (Ignatius), Looking at the Liturgy (Ignatius), Holy Eucharist, Hopkins: Theologian's Poet, and The Thought of Benedict XVI. Excerpts from some of his books can be found on the Christendom-Awake website.

Related Ignatius Insight pieces:

• The Pattern of Revelation: A Contentious Issue | From Lovely Like Jerusalem | Aidan Nichols, O.P.
• Going Deeper Into the Old Testament: An Interview with Aidan Nichols, O.P.

Comments

[Raving Papist]

Wow.

Nice pre-Lent, Superbowl of Salvation message!

Time for Team Catholic to get in the game.

[Marco]

Bravo for Father Nichols! The tide is turning, thanks to men of courage and faith like him. Thank you for leading me to the "Catholic Herald" website...marvelous things there. England is fortunate to have such a good Catholic newspaper.

[BillyHW]

Something tells me Fr. Nichols isn't a Jesuit...

[Carl Olson]

Something tells me Fr. Nichols isn't a Jesuit...

Yep: the "O.P." after his name. ;-)

[m.daughertyrazetto]

Marco: Priceless, remark
C.Olson: great wit...